All Stories

Two focused lights shine, like spotlights onto stage. I in one. She in another.

My left hand stretches out to her light, to hold her hand; small, smooth and perfect.

But I can’t quite reach, like Michelangelo’s Sistine Chapel.

I’m about to fall, from my light, but I don’t care. All that matters is holding those small, beautiful fingers. They are all I can think about.

But before I do the unthinkable, another hand grabs my right hand.

It’s not small and perfect but big, callused and real.

You held me back, stopped me falling, but everyday I’m still reaching.

“How many sheep can you see?” asks mum.

“1, 2, 3, 4… Five!”

Little feet follow bigger feet along a muddy, brown track. It winds through emerald fields, full of sheep and passed stinging nettles. To the treasured waterfall, where silver droplets cascade from towering white limestone cliffs, like diamonds spilling from a pirate’s hands.

Steps have been built to the left-hand side.

Little feet follow bigger feet up the steps, and a little voice starts to count,”1, 2, 3, 4…”

On and on to a hundred and twenty-one.

Then the little voice says, “Mummy. I’m tired you finish counting.”

Tiffany carefully places the drinks on the table, between her two best friends. She moves their drinks closer to them.

But as hers sits between them, each friend reads the words on it.

“Time for Tea!” says Rachel.

“Time for Coffee,” says Luke at the same time.

“It’s a teacup,” says Rachel.

“A coffee mug,” insists Luke.

Used to their arguments, Tiffany laughs and says, “You’re both wrong.”

Her friends look at her, used to Tiffany’s unique way of seeing many sides of an argument.

Picking up the drink, Tiffany smells the contents and declares,

“It’s time for hot chocolate.”

Waking, I am a light.  Stretching, I stoke the flames and push away the darkness, as I push away my duvet.

When I meet family, friends, colleagues or even a stranger, I am surrounded with more lights, like candles being lit.  Their warmth brightens my own flame.

But then the voice of darkness threatens, creeps, squirms around the lights. It can’t touch them, can’t smoother their flames. But if we focus on the darkness, if we listen to the negative, the destruction, and the hate we will dim our own lights and end in darkness.

Always, look for the light.

Buzz.

Buzz.

You freeze. Every nerve in your body tingling, anticipating the sting.

Buzz.

Buzz.

There. Your eyes lock on the twitching antennae and the long, yellow and black, segmented body. This creature is so different from your own physic, so strange and incomprehensible. Shivering with the nervous energy needed to hold this pose you consider what to do.

At least bees make honey.

Words echo from the past, “They clean up the uneaten fruit that falls from trees”.

The black and yellow bodies do look like the uniform of bin men.

But given the chance you still run away.

The Salith stole the Gallic Wings of the Fliers of Do’Odare. Without them the Fliers were nothing. Doomed to walk the earth, like the Lower Cranaks. But it is from the Cranaks that Saviour rose, from the stories of old. Higher and higher, he rose, across the Anjala Ocean, to the Salith.

On the White Rock, Saviour battled for three days, defeated the Salith and retrieved the Wings. But the Fliers refused them, saying they deserved to crawl the earth.

So, Saviour chose the New Fliers from the Lower Cranaks. Raising up those thought nothing and so Do’Ocran was born.

A thunderous sound resounds around the universe. A Titan of our childhood has fallen. Fallen to the longest of friends, the oldest of enemies, to Time.

His witnesses of Life gather to witness his departure.

A piercing creak signals the opening of an ancient door. Opening to admit the fallen to the feast beyond the threshold.

Given the chance, we, those still living, strain to see beyond the doorway, hoping to glimpse others we have lost.

But another thunderous sound resounds around the universe.  The ancient door slams shut and vanishes, and we are left in Life, to go on.

“I shouldn’t have come,” says the girl standing on the threshold.

Blocking the way is the boy, at least he used to be. Now tall and gangly, he fills out his dark blue shirt and his face has lines that she doesn’t remember; the story she didn’t get to read. 

Seeing him now, seeing the reality of him, of the time that has passed written on his face, she realises she doesn’t know this man.

Dropping her eyes, she turns to go, her shoulders slumped.

Then he says, “I’m glad you did.”

Stepping back, he lets her across Time’s threshold.

Overwhelmed, the girl slams out of the house.

Normally, she’d flee to the beach, to stand barefoot on the endless golden sands, listen to the crashing waves, feel the breeze on her face, smell the salt air and look to the never-ending horizon. The freedom of her soul.

But times are not normal, and she can’t escape by her usual route.

Pacing back and forth, her bare feet are tickled by grass, she hears the rustling trees, smells the flowers, feels the warm sun on her face, she looks up to the forget-me-not blue sky and there finds another escape.

Seeing an ambulance at your house, your friend scoops up her sleeping baby, shoves her feet into a pair of wellies, squashes her pre-schooler into a t-shirt and races down the hill to find the emergency is at your neighbour’s house.

After convincing you to drink the spare shots, your friend stays with you. She listens to your drunkard rant, picks you off the floor and takes you home.

Motivating you to go to the gym, your friend entertains you.

Even when, over a pub breakfast, you discuss everything and nothing, and don’t agree about anything, he’s still your friend.